#adult sff

[belle-keys]

"Things are so much sweeter when they have an ending; things are so much more painful when they can be ripped away."

Official character art by Little Chmura for the new Masters of Death (2023) by Olivie Blake. Published by Tor Books.

[scholar-of-yemdresh]

EDIT: List can be found here

Will anybody be interested if I made a list of adult transmasc and Nonbinary/transneutral main/major characters in adult fantasy and Science Books.

Because I'm legit sick of the infantilisation both within and outside the community. Why is so much of the NB and transmasc rep children 😭.

Even outside of the miniscule rep Even less of it are grown adult main characters. None of that side character's love interest is a trans dude business, or a they/them appears for one page and is never seen again.

Anyway I've got a handful of characters in books I've read/on my TBR and I want to share them with others looking for this kind of rep.

[literatureaesthetic]

— started listening to 'gideon the ninth', it's so fun so far!!

[anyajohannadeniro]

My story “Last Witch of the Ewes” is in this anthology.

[kappabooks]

Can't Wait Wednesday | May 17th

This week's Can't Wait Wednesday post is all about the indie lesbian sci-fi tale that I've been SCREAMING about over on Instagram!

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. Junker Seven by Olive J. Kelley A romantic, queer sci-fi epic about changing the galaxy, one girl at a…

[anodetofiction]

Review : The Lies of the Ajungo (Forever Desert #1) by Moses Ose Utomi

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. The Lies of the Ajungo (Forever Desert #1) by Moses Ose Utomi Published by Tordotcom Adult Epic Fantasy Goodreads | Amazon | Blackwells | Bookshop.org (affiliate) Release Date : March 21st 2023 SYNOPSIS They say there is no water in the City of Lies. They say there are no heroes in the City of Lies. They say there are no friends beyond the City of Lies. But would…

[kd-holloman]

The Traveler's Gift is available on Amazon! By your copy here! [X]

[akairondragon]

Beta readers, your time has come! Now's your chance to read The First Sin and give me feedback to make it even better. Check the image for the story blurb, then head on over to the form to sign up:

I am looking for adult beta readers from a variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and sexualities who enjoy science fiction and fantasy novels. I would also appreciate sensitivity reads for gay rep, poly rep, and temporary disability.

[witch-king-of-angstmar]

So I was just thinking about my murder mermaids story, the one with an ocean punk Atlantis type society set on a sloshy ice moon. FMC is Kihta, a "mermaid" (human who has adapted to living in an Atlantean ocean dome) who longs to explore, but who can't leave the dome because of...a reason... Something like she has a medical condition that makes it so she can't swim like the others. TBD. And/or only her dome has enough of her medication to keep her alive. Initially I had her make a deal with the sea witch to magic her some meds so she could run away with a bunch of vagabonds, MMC, Helior, being one of them. Helior is an escaped science experiment, and he has Abilities. TBD. They meet when Kihta's killer catlike curiosity leads her to witness a crime (and possibly a shocking truth about the corruption in the dome keeping people sick) and Helior running away, and she helps Helior hide from the people who are after him, and in return he helps her awaken her magical ability properly. ~~she might have a pet Helior now idk~~

Initially I had her ask the sea witch for help, but I think there is no sea witch.

When the local crime lords start throttling supplies (or something - something that triggers her greatest fear of being sold off or something), I think it's actually Helior she asks for help, even though she doesn't know if she can trust him. And that's how they assemble a ragtag crew - all of whom are running away, all of whom have secrets - to journey to Somewhere Awesome where they can find the Awesome Thing that will help them save the village.

Most of this is TBD. I'm just spitballing.

[kadoore]

It's here!

It's queer!

[solradguy]

I thought the early 2000s "strong yet naked/mostly naked woman kept in her place by stronger, bigger, beast/monster or gang of racist caricatures" trope* was known by basically everyone but I mentioned it as a criticism of this older art book I'd flipped through recently to a friend and it turns out it isn't lol Maybe I've just read too many Heavy Metal issues... It used to be HORRIBLY inescapable in any sort of mature art scene back in the day lmao

*This trope is different from the pre-2000s one because the women usually look like they COULD fight back for at least a little bit whereas the previous trope had them be completely helpless damsels in distress

[hedgehog-moss]

do you ever read scifi or fantasy in french? i am trying to read more sff that was originally published not in english but it's not easy to find 💀

I do! It’s not my favourite genre but one of my friends loves it so I read a bunch of SFF books every year ahead of her birthday to try and find a gift for her. I’m glad I do this because it’s allowed me to discover N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy which was amazing, and I don’t know if I would have picked it up otherwise!

Here are some French-language authors I’ve read or plan to read (unfortunately English translations are few and far between :( I bolded the names for which I found English translations—if you read in another language you can check out the non-bolded authors, there are often translations available in other languages long before English ones)

When it comes to classics you've got Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes of course; also Garden on the Moon, which is (deservedly imo) less known), Jacques Spitz (La Guerre des mouches—it was translated but not into English), René Barjavel (The Ice People, Ravage, Future Times Three—I read them a long time ago but I remember them as very sexist even by French classic standards), Bernard Lenteric (La nuit des enfants rois), Alain Damasio (La Horde du Contrevent—maybe too recent to be a classic but it’s everywhere. I was surprised to find no English translation!), Bernard Werber (I feel like he rehashes the same 3 ideas again and again but some of his earlier stuff was fun), Alexandre Arnoux (Le règne du bonheur), Jules Verne of course, Stefan Wul (Oms en série which was adapted into the film La Planète sauvage—Fantastic Planet in English. I like the film better!) And some I haven’t read: Georges-Jean Arnaud, Serge Brussolo (I liked his Peggy Sue series when I was in middle school but it spooked me so much I haven’t dared to pick up any of his SFF for adults, like Les semeurs d’abîmes), Élisabeth Vonarburg.

Newer authors: Estelle Faye (L’arpenteuse de rêves, Un éclat de givre—I tend to like her worldbuilding more than her plots); Sandrine Collette (The Forests—if you count speculative fiction as SFF) (I didn’t like it at all personally but others might), Jean-Philippe Jaworski (I really liked Janua Vera; didn't like Gagner la guerre but it was mainly because I have a low tolerance for rape scenes in fantasy books) (he’s about to be translated into English according to his editor), Stéphane Beauverger (Le déchronologue)

More authors I haven't yet read: Pierre Pevel (The Cardinal's Blades—I've been told it's "17th century Paris with dragons"), Romain Lucazeau (Latium), Laurent Genefort (Lum’en), Christian Charrière (La forêt d’Iscambe), Roland Wagner (La saison de la sorcière), Aurélie Wellenstein (Mers Mortes—I love the synopsis for this one), Magali Villeneuve (La dernière Terre, trilogy)

And non-French, non-anglo SFF authors: Maryam Petrosyan (my review of the Gray House last year was that I understood maybe 1/3 of it but I liked it anyway!), Hao Jingfang (haven’t read her yet), Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (idem), Jaroslav Melnik (I’ve read Espace lointain (originally Далекий простір) but didn’t like it much), Andreas Eschbach (The Carpet Makers), Walter Moers (I read The City of Dreaming Books back when I was still learning German and found it very charming), Liu Cixin (I loved The Three-Body Problem but The Dark Forest was so sexist it made me not want to pick up the third volume), Lola Robles (El informe Monteverde, translated as Memoirs of an Interstellar Linguist), Elaine Vilar Madruga (Fragmentos de la Tierra Rota), Tatiana Tolstaya (The Slynx), Karin Tidbeck (Amatka), Emmi Itäranta (Memory of Water, The Moonday Letters), Angélica Gorodischer (I’ve read Kalpa Imperial and found it only so-so but it always takes me a while to warm up to characters or a setting so I struggle with short story collections. I’ll still give Trafalgar a try) Also my favourite fantasy book as a kid was Michael Ende’s Neverending Story, I was obsessed with it. I re-read it in the original German a few years ago and it was still great.

[scholar-of-yemdresh]

It's frustrating being a person who's really only interested in diverse adult science fiction and fantasy books and has no interest in YA/kidlit or romance.

Frustrating because on one side the people who are into primarily adult sff are only talking about the generic medieval euro cishet mantasy slop; the Wheel of Dragon song light storms by Brandon Mcwhite dude, then the other side is primarily only about YA or "NA" romantasy.

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's near impossible to find diverse adult sff book people that aren't like 90% into YA/ YA books masquerading as adult with majority of the adult books they read are romantasy smut 💀

So as relatively romance/sex repulsed asexual and someone who doesn't care for narratives centering teens/kids, I'm just in my lonely little SFF corner. I can't interact with the broader book fandoms because both sides of it don't interest me much

It's the same issue I have with anime/manga fandom which is 99% about infantile battle shonen and then Berserk as the token adult manga. For God's sake where are the grown adults interested in adult stories where the only thing that marks them as adult is smut?

I like to read about adults with adult problems I also like to read about queers & POC in Interesting fantasy/sci-fi worlds

[thethiefandtheairbender]

also for newer followers who might not know

i'm writing a book! and it's getting published!

if you just want the immediate details you can click the read and read a short FAQ! if you need more to get sold on it, stick around and check it out!

My YA SFF fantasy debut, ALVOSKIA: Call of the Infrans, follows an Unchosen one named Ally who is struggling to find where she belongs amidst her chosen one found family family when violence arrives at their doorstep, and they're forced to fulfil their duties earlier than expected. There's dragons and child soldiers and subverted fantasy tropes, some tone consistent werewolves, an almost entirely queer main cast with the majority also being characters of colour, and if you've been following my blog for any amount of time, it probably has something for you.

If you like ATLA: "what if there were multiple Avatars running around, and what if they weren't all automatically good people?" + past lives and reincarnation cycles

If you like Derry Girls: hot mess of teenagers getting in and out of trouble together while being ridiculous (and sometimes very sad)

If you like PJO: young teenagers with cool powers going on quests together and coming-of-age. And snark. Lots of snark

If you like Six of Crows: morally dubious collection of protagonists, some heisting may or may not happen, outsiders working together

If you like TDP: elves and dragons and long standing grudges and politics

If you like Star Wars: y'know how the Force like consumes you the farther you wander in? yeah that's the magic system here. + some shadow, death, and shapeshifter stuff

If you like HTTYD: you're here for the found family and fun fantasy aesthetic aren't you

Rep: queer (aro, ace, bi, pan, trans, lesbian, nonbinary, genderfluid, gay main characters, often times overlapping); Asian (Indonesian), Black, Sri Lankan and Pakistani (coded) rep; hijabi rep; one character is an amputee and one main character is Autistic.

The debut month is March 2026! Sometimes there is even very pretty (commissioned or friends) art for it:

If you want more info in the meantime you can shoot me an ask or you can follow this sideblog for it. If you want a taste of my fandom writing first you can check out my AO3 or writing snippets on said side blog, like this one:

Likes and reblogs mean a lot and I hope you enjoy!

[bookishfeylin]

Are you going to be reading House of Flame and Shadow, if only to keep up with what’s happening in ACOTAR now that there's a crossover?

No I’m much more interested in reading this:

[kappabooks]

Sci-fi Books on My TBR | Top Ten Tuesdays

My TTT post is up! It's a genre freebie this week, so I'm talking sci-fi!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme brought to you by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was previously hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is “Genre Freebie (Pick a genre and build a list around it. It could be a list of favorites, a to-read list, recommendations for people interested in reading books in that genre, “if you like this, try this”, etc.).” I’ve decided to talk about more…